Presented as both a continuation of and a disruption to the Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive, Exodus Crooks’ why live anywhere else? explores Northfleet’s local geography through alternative forms of charting space and place.
Inspired by the practice of counter-mapping, the project will use local archives and maps, as well as natural materials, to reveal critical histories of the area’s industrial legacy, including its human and non-human impact. Over a series of workshops, Exodus is collaborating with a group of young people at Northfleet School for Girls as ‘counter cartographers’, working with them to reveal the stories and realities that may have been hidden from existing maps, visualisations, and narratives of the area.
This dialogue between Exodus and the young people will gradually develop into new contributions to the Ebbsfleet Citizen Archive and will be used to inform public local heritage walks in the autumn.
why live anywhere else? has been commissioned by Cement Fields and supported by Creative Estuary, Gravesham Borough Council, and Ebbsfleet Development Corporation through the Northfleet Place Partnership. With additional support from Northfleet School for Girls.
Exodus Crooks (They/He) is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist and educator who was recently shortlisted as a 2025 Arts Foundation Future Awards artist. Exodus is interested in self-determination and how it is steered by religion and spirituality. Informed by a fractious domestic life, their practice is auto ethnographical and exists in the orbit of their educational role where they work to reimagine Western pedagogy.
Their art is research focused and follows the lead of the many radical Caribbean writers and thinkers advocating for indigenous ways of living. Exodus is currently experimenting with gardening, text, filmmaking, and installation to better understand the complexities of the human experience.
Exodus serves on a regional arts advisory board and a national artists council that advocates for the development and protection of artists and has previously exhibited and worked with Ikon Gallery, the International Curators Forum, iniva, Freelands Foundation, LUX Scotland and Serpentine Galleries in London. They are proud to be based in heart of the Midland’s vibrant art community, working closely with local galleries and organisations such as Grand Union, Vivid Projects, The New Art Gallery Walsall, and Wolverhampton Art Gallery.